Eli Lilly: Experimental Alzheimer’s drug shows some benefit

The results were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association worldwide Conference in Washington DC, US, where another drug was shown to shrink protein deposits in the brain linked to Alzheimer’s.

On MMSE, patients taking placebo declined by 2.81 points after a year, Biogen said Wednesday.

Eli Lilly is releasing results from a clinical trial of solanezumab. LLY, +0.32%, investors sold shares of both companies in early trading Wednesday.

Hints at the drug’s effectiveness will be outlined, but Solanezumab has been the great hope of dementia research. The number could triple by 2050 providing a huge marketplace for the drug as now approved treatments only address symptoms rather than slow the disease progression. In less than 10 years, 1 million people will be living with the condition.

It is an antibody that is infused intravenously.

U.S. pharmaceuticals company Eli Lilly will publish the results of a clinical trial of a medicine called Solanezumab, which has been described as the world’s most promising drug for treating Alzheimer’s disease. But he stuck to his estimate that planned late-stage trials of the drug have a 50 percent chance of success.

Play video “Alzheimer’s Patient On Disease”.

A trial of the drug in 2012 was extended when it seemed to be working for patients in the early stages.

It is thought that if given to patients early enough, the medication will slow down the condition.

When researchers compared the cognitive function of the two groups two years into the study, the difference was “statistically significant”, Eli Lilly said in a statement.

It is known that these drugs are not stopping, halting or curing dementia.

But the picture changed when researchers picked out a subset of patients with mild symptoms who had started treatment early. “And that benefit appears to reflect disease modification”.

“We are particularly excited about these data because this is the first time the delayed-start methodology has been implemented for an Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial”, said Hong Liu-Seifert, Ph.D., study research advisor at Eli Lilly and Company.

“The results of the extension study show that those who were treated with solanezumab in the phase III study, and then continued on the drug, saw a sustained improvement over patients initially treated with the placebo and then moved over to the drug later”.

The results impressed Wall Street and lifted the company’s stock to all-time highs. However, hopes were raised in March when Biogen’s experimental Alzheimer’s drug exceeded expectations.

Solanezumab works by blocking formation of a protein called beta amyloid believed to cause toxic brain plaques that are considered a hallmark of Alzheimer’s.

Participants are randomly assigned to either receive the active drug or a placebo (sham treatment).

The data due out today will show the effects of another dose – 6 milligrams – after one year.

A trial of the therapy was terminated in December 2014 after a preplanned look at the data in the middle of the study suggested the treatment wasn’t making an impact on cognition. “The cognitive benefits are not astounding”. The results provide encouraging evidence that solanezumab could indeed be acting on the disease processes that drive Alzheimer’s.